Lanco Excited to Tour With ‘Stand-Up Guy’ Chris Young (Again)

Lanco might be a fairly new band, but they are certainly getting plenty of opportunities to play for some large crowds. The five-man group, made up of Brandon Lancaster, Chandler Baldwin, Jared Hampton, Tripp Howell and Eric Steedly, opened for Dustin Lynch during his Ride or Die Tour in 2017 and will be joining Chris Young on his Losing Sleep Tour, which will begin on Thursday (Jan. 11).

"It’s so cool because we already look up to Chris Young," Lancaster shared with The Boot and other reporters at a recent media event. "We’ve played a few shows with him in the past, just one-offs. I already look up to him as an artist and a vocalist, and he does a great show … It’s cool because you do become friends with these artists and you do become proud of them."

Adds Howell, "Chris is the kind of guy that, when we were first getting started, a lot of artists, you don’t even know who you’re opening up for every night, especially at that level. And he, when we first played with him, he took the time to come to our RV that we were traveling on and had a conversation with us, invited us up on his bus and was really cool to us early on. He’s just a stand-up guy all around."

The tour opportunities are only part of what has been a whirlwind year for Lanco; they also scored their first-ever gold-selling, multi-week No. 1 single with "Greatest Love Story," from their upcoming album,Hallelujah Nights. But before the success came a lot of hard work, which the band members still vividly recall.

"There’s tons of highs. We’ve also been a band for years now, and we’ve experienced a bunch of not such great times: flat tires, empty venues, 'am I going to pay rent this month?', stuff like that," says Baldwin. "We all know what that feels like and have experienced it together, and I think it makes the good times even better, just experiencing it all together."

Continues Lancaster, "When times have been bad, we all kept each other in check because we all worked normal jobs ... and we’d hang out afterwards and dream about these things ... And it’s like, ‘Hey, the worst day playing a show is a better day than cutting rugs.’ ... Now, we can definitely look around and be like -- it’s just surreal. We look around and are like, ‘Remember when we used to all sit around on the porch and talk about, 'We should play some shows'?"

A list of all of Lanco's upcoming shows is available on their website.